Project Sleepover and Etc
by Aeanagwen
Summary: Nico hosts a sleepover to lay her plans for the year ahead. (Features the Kiznaiver Power Trio. Shippy if you'd like it to be.)


(A short fill for a pairing meme: _things you said while holding my hand | things you said in the backyard at night_ )

* * *

"That's a nice lawn ornament."

Katsuhira blinks, then follows Hisomu's gaze across the considerable expanse of the Niyama family's backyard. Built at the middle point of the ivy-bedecked brick wall ringing the property, an ornamental fountain bubbles away, its polished stone gleaming in the moonlight. At its center, a statue of a female archer bends back a bow, arrow pointing skyward. Hisomu's steps angle towards it, and his fingers, wound together with Katsuhira's, twitch and tap against the back of Katsuhira's hand.

"Stop!"

Nico pounds down the curve of her house's back staircase and jumps the last two steps. She lands in front of them in a flurry of blonde and green hair, her back turned to them and her arms spread out for balance. With a neat crossing of her ankles, she pivots, her arms remaining lifted to bar the way forward. Her nightgown is covered in flowers, big, floppy, tropical blossoms in pink and orange and purple, by far the most colorful thing on the landscape. By comparison, Katsuhira's muted blue pajamas and Hisomu's fraying—well, everything—look practically clinical.

"But it looks so nice and sharp," Hisomu says. Even standing mostly behind him, Katsuhira can hear the wistful pout in his voice.

"First!" Nico holds up one finger. "It's rude to get other peoples' things messy by bleeding on them! Second!" A second finger uncurls to join the first. "Nico's house means Nico's rules! And Nico's rules are that Hisomu-kun can't try to impale himself on her family statuary! Hisomu-kun can hold his own sleepover if he wants to hurt himself in front of friends!"

Her frank enthusiasm still makes Katsuhira's head spin, a bit, even after everything. Hisomu heaves a put-upon sigh, sagging backwards against Katsuhira, who stumbles under his weight, but wraps his free arm around Hisomu to steady the both of them.

"And third!" Nico proclaims with another flourished finger. "Even if Hisomu-kun hurt himself, there's a doctor riiiiiight iiiiin—there!" She points, outstretched finger scanning along the windows lining the back of the house before she settles on a lit square in the upper right corner. "So it wouldn't last very long before he had someone patching him up and making him take pain-killers anyway. It'd be too fleeting to be any good!"

She fixes a forthright gaze on Hisomu, who sighs again, mournfully.

"So strict," he complains, but there's no force to it. When, Katsuhira wonders, did she learn to handle Hisomu so well?

Nico favors Hisomu with a wide, unrepentant smile, and reaches up past him to catch Katsuhira's free hand and tug them down the last few steps. The staircase lets out onto a wide veranda, dotted with expensive-looking patio furniture, which Nico dodges around, leading her guests back around the staircase banister to the lawn, which frames the veranda in a landscaped arc matched precisely to the curve of the stairs overhanging it. She's set up a tent on the grass, tucked up against the descending steps, incongruous in the manor's shade. A lantern and a picnic basket sit outside the tent, both resting atop an unfurled bedspread, its white surface dotted with frolicking Gomorins.

"Project Sleepover to Plan for the Next School Year and Talk About Everything But Especially Getting Makimaki and Yuyu to Start Openly Hanging Out With Us START!" Nico chirps in one unbroken torrent, releasing Katsuhira's hand to fling herself down onto the blanket. One of her slippers—neon green rabbits with sewn-on buttons and swatches of ribbon—falls off her foot and lands next to her. Hisomu chuckles, and untangles his hand from Katsuhira's to lower himself down near Nico, pulling up his knees to rest his chin on them. His bare toes wiggle against the blanket, crinkling and straightening out the bizarre face of a Gomorin mascot, scrunching it back and forth like a distorting handpuppet.

The absurdity of it all washes over Katsuhira in a wave, and he remains standing, trying to identify the feeling. It's too warm to be uncertainty, and too all-encompassing to be discomfort. Not heart-pounding enough to be love or fear, and not draining enough to be weariness. He can feel a smile on his face, still a foreign visitor to a degree, but one that's doing all the right paperwork to become a regular citizen.

Nico rolls onto her stomach, craning her head over her shoulder to smile up at him. "Sit down, Katsuhira-kun! Lets get started!" She sits up on her knees, and reaches out her hand.

Hisomu, too, looks up, and smiles, mild and serene. One of his hands is fiddling with the switch on the lantern, twisting it back and forth, on and off, in blinks of warm yellow light and returning shadow. He slides his other hand out across the blanket, and pats the surface of the cloth.

Affection, Katsuhira supposes the warm feeling must be, and sits down, taking their hands.


End file.
